he served previously in the senate for senators martinez, and two other senators. we will start off with james and move on down. thank you. >> good afternoon. please bear with me. i am slowly getting my voice back. first, thank you to heritage, to mike, and my fellow panelists. i thought i would start off with two quotations which might help us free and the discretion that we will have and at least my comments, and then i will lay out what i think is a way to view this issue we're discussing today, a question of obstruction and in the contemporary senate. the first quotation is from a book, from william riechart. you can convince other people to persuade you and then you vote and you win. the winners induce more than political persuasion, because they have set up in such a way that other people want to join them. even without any precision at all. this is what political strategy is about, structuring the world so you can win. that is the first quotation. the second is from our current majority leader harry reid, and he said in 2010, the republicans have had lots of